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Northern Norrland has a long history of domestic colonialism and internal migration. However, in the latter half of the twentieth century the region has seen a decline in population, job opportunities and welfare services. This study analyses how contemporary popular music from the region represents it and reflects feelings and thoughts on life there, and how identity, moods and sentiments are constructed and attached to place to uncover the rhetoric of place-making in popular music. The analysis shows a complex relationship between the local area and the surrounding country, featuring themes of ambivalence, resistance, dualistic nostalgia and transience responding to contemporary realities of the region. The lyrical themes and rhetorical actions performed in twenty-first century popular music evinces clear connections to literary depictions of the region throughout the last hundred years, indicating a reinterpretation of cultural memory in light of present conditions. These lyrics perform a rhetoric of re-membering which serves to reinforce the bond of people to place through music., Northern Norrland has a long history of domestic colonialism and internal migration. However, in the latter half of the twentieth century the region has seen a decline in population, job opportunities and welfare services. This study analyses how contemporary popular music from the region represents it and reflects feelings and thoughts on life there, and how identity, moods and sentiments are constructed and attached to place to uncover the rhetoric of place-making in popular music. The analysis shows a complex relationship between the local area and the surrounding country, featuring themes of ambivalence, resistance, dualistic nostalgia and transience responding to contemporary realities of the region. The lyrical themes and rhetorical actions performed in twenty-first century popular music evinces clear connections to literary depictions of the region throughout the last hundred years, indicating a reinterpretation of cultural memory in light of present conditions. These lyrics perform a rhetoric of re-membering which serves to reinforce the bond of people to place through music.

In this article, we investigate the rhetorical uses and media frames associated with the term polarisation in Swedish print media from 2010 to 2021. We first produce a qualitative and detailed assessment of a sample of 240 articles and then proceed to a computational (word2vec) analysis of all major Swedish newspaper articles including the term (N = 32,805). We find that the term has changed its rhetorical function over time. Initially used to describe, – that is, used as a technical descriptor of events and issues in society – this use later became increasingly vague and general. Instead, it has been rhetorically used to amplify, implying a sense of urgency, conflict, or threat. Over time, the term has been used increasingly frequently, but has been applied less to Sweden and, instead, most often associated with political actors and events in the US. Moreover, we find that, for Sweden, the term polarisation was mostly related to social and political issues, whereas for the US, it carried affective associations.

Tekstfragmentering har længe været et anerkendt problem i retorikforskningen, men selvom det har ført til en lang række metodiske og metodologiske nyskabelser i nyere tid, så består problemet fortsat på et noget overset område: de sociale medier. Her er indhold fragmenteret i den mest bogstavelige forstand, med opslag der udelukkende består af intertekstuelle referencer, anonyme, pseudonyme eller falske identiteter, og skjulte algoritmer der bestemmer synlighed og vægtighed, blandt mange andre metodiske udfordringer. Digitale artefakter bruges tit i retorikforskning, men disse udfordringer diskuteres sjældent. Ofte bliver artefakterne fundet frem til igennem den samme brugerflade, der filtrerer og personaliserer brugeroplevelsen, hvilket sætter spørgsmålstegn ved artefakternes repræsentativitet – især når antal bruges som argument. Specialet her foreslår en løsning på dette metodiske problem ved at introducere en abduktiv-eksplorativ forskningstilgang med en tilknyttet tværfaglig og tværmetodisk metodologi, der bruges til en analyse af Twitterdiskurs om det seneste folketingsvalg. Kvantitative databehandlingsmetoder er blevet brugt til at indsamle og destillere et repræsentativt korpus bestående af ca. 20.000 danske tweets til en læsbar størrelse. Det banede vejen for en kvalitativ analyse af fantasitemaer og retoriske visioner, som er operationaliseret igennem en økologisk retorikforståelse. Nærlæsning frembragte tre, vidt forskellige retoriske visioner, der dog var forenet i deres brug af kandidater og partier som centrale figurer: i Spilvisionen bliver de brugt til historiefortælling, som narrative karakterer, der driver et plot fremad eller formidler en morale, eller som sportsudøvere i et kynisk magtspil; i Kampen mod det onde-visionen er figurerne enten fjender eller allierede i en moralsk konflikt, hvor de ofte er syndebukke; mens de i Håbvisionen er repræsentanter for folkets ønsker om forandringer i den politiske arena. Specialet har overordnet set et ekspl, The fragmentation of discourse has long been acknowledged as a problem in constructing ‘texts’ for rhetorical analysis. Though rhetorical scholarship has brought a broad range of methodological and methodical innovations to the field in the recent years, the problem of fragmentation still stands as an area that is somewhat neglected in rhetorical research: social media content. ‘Texts’ on social media are fragmented in the most literal sense, with some posts devoted entirely to intertextual references, anonymous or pseudonymous authors, black-boxed algorithms determining visibility and salience, and more. Digital artefacts are occasionally studied in rhetorical research; however, their fragmentation is seldomly addressed, often being found and collected through the same, limited front-end that personalise the feeds for the users. The present thesis suggests a possible solution to this issue by introducing an abductive-explorative research approach coupled with an interdisciplinary, mixed-methods methodology in examining Twitter discourse related to the 2022 Danish parliamentary elections. Quantitative, computational methods were used to collect a representative corpus of almost 20,000 tweets, as well as to distil this corpus to a manageable format, which was then analysed using qualitative fantasy-theme analysis, operationalised through an ecological framework of rhetoric. Through these lenses, three distinct rhetorical visions were discovered, united in their common reliance on political candidates and parties as central figures. In the Game vision, political figures are used as characters in a play to narrate a plot or as players on a field, framing the election as an entertaining pastime; in the Battle against evil vision, the figures were characterised as allies or enemies in a moral struggle, often used as scapegoats for the rhetors; and conversely, in the Hope vision, the figures stood as representatives in democracy, as the mediator of change in society. The

This overview presents 10 Ph.D. projects that illustrate the breadth of Scandinavian rhetorical research. Among them are projects on specific conceptualizations in the field of rhetoric such as accusations, anger, the body, and voice in writing; projects on the rhetoric of groups, organizations and social movements such as the EU, LGBTQ+ minorities, and climate activists; projects that capture public debates, for example on forestry and climate change; didactic projects, and projects entertaining new methods and methodologies for rhetorical research, such as computer assisted big data analysis and participatory rhetorical criticism. This representation of 10 diverse emerging scholars from 6 Scandinavian universities gives a taste of the contemporary rhetorical research scene in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway.

Speakers may argue in ways that facilitate cooperation, without really establishing unity. If emphasis is put on the word “composite” in composite audience, then the complementary act of addressing such an audience can be understood as an orchestration of different people, who may cooperate toward a conclusion. This brings attention to the multidimensionality of issues in pluralistic communities and the range of consequences proposals may have. Following Perelman’s and Olbrechts-Tyteca’s New Rhetoric, I discuss how the compositeness of such argumentation can be fruitfully approached pluralistically. I argue that proposals on practical issues imply concomitant situations, wherein audiences are assigned different roles to play toward the ends of argumentation. This means that rhetorical argumentation performs implicit diplomacy, with implications for different audiences and the relationships between them. I conclude this article by discussing what this pluralistic and interactional account means for the analysis and evaluation of arguments and their rhetoric.

This paper examines the persuasive role of ethos and persona in trickster discourse by studying the pilot episode of the Australian TV-series "John Safran's Race Relations". Using methods of Role- and Fantasy-theme criticism I conclude that the artefact uses a strategy of authority by experience and identification to create a strong bond of sympathy for the main character, who leads by example in his subversive strategies and actions to find loopholes in the cultural and ethnic constraints in a multicultural society. This is offset by an ironic form that creates a complex meaning of the main character, who uses himself as a scapegoat for shortcomings of the majority culture. This is achieved by an ambivalent authenticity in connection to the persona and the rhetor, and a core strategy of forcing the audience to adopt the rhetors perspective.